Stars Collide
by sleepy barn owl
Summary: All human, alternate universe. High school! LOTS O FAX. Fang and Max have hated each other ever since they met, but for some reason, a group project and a new voice in Fang's head have brought them together. Will ROMANCE occur? DISCONTINUED/HIATUS (I have given up with MR for now) (It's January 12, 2018 and I'm still missing this fandom please help me)
1. Chapter 1

**HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Yes, every single one of those O's represents me being sorry. I know there's like, one, or possibly two, of you guys out there who like this story, and those 40 SORRYs are for you!**

 **Since my 13** **th** **birthday and enrollment in REAL SCHOOL (insert girly scream), my Great Bisexual Realization*, and my first real TWO-WAY GUY CRUSH, I've decided I'm mature enough to rewrite this story. YEAHHH, my achievements are all super childish, but whatever…**

 **Anyways, have fun reading the trash that is the byproduct of my fucked-up head! xxxx**

 ** _*For those of this reading this who know me in real life and SOMEHOW hadn't figured it out: Yes, yes I am. Love you!_**

* * *

"Nice shoes, Ride."

I held my breath as I passed Nick, hands clenched into fists. He was baiting me for some sort of reaction, and I was aching to give him one. Preferably in the form of a sneaker planted between his legs. But I'd already been suspended for fighting several times too many. Despite my attitude, I really did care about my grades, and I wasn't about to let Nicholas Walker ruin them with his awful taunting.

Instead, I bit my lip and stared down at my shoes. The once-vibrant red Converse were now coated in a thick layer of mud from the school parking lot, which had been sprayed at me by a fast-driving car owned by none other than Nick himself.

"Cat got your tongue? Or are you… simply too weak to respond?"

I knew that simply fixing my gaze on my shoes was probably not the best idea. It would be viewed as a sign of puniness by the bully – probably even worse than getting a violent reaction out of me. But once again, I _really_ couldn't afford to miss more school.

"Are you deaf?" he asked, trailing behind me as I arrived at my locker. I finally snapped, turning to face him dead in the eye.

"I'm simply ignoring you, Nicholas. I apologize, but I'm not some random slut who pretends to find you interesting. You really are quite dull. A two-dimensional, cookie-cutter bully type."

He raised an eyebrow, but looked slightly surprised when he replied. "Impressive, Maxie. I think that's the most I've heard out of you since we met. But I will admit that your calling my acquaintances sluts is rather demeaning."

"It can't be demeaning if it's the truth," I retorted, slamming my locker shut and feeling proud. I, Maximum Ride, had partially defeated Nicholas Walker without even _touching_ him. No face-bashing or dick-kicking included. Just a good old-fashioned battle of the words.

I started walking down the hall, practically glowing at the victory. But –

 _Thud._

That was the sound of me hitting the ground like a hundred-and-five-pound sack of flour and getting the air knocked out of me. And that demented shrieking sound is one of Nick's sluts – ahem, _acquaintances_ , silly me – laughing as Nick towered over me, looking smug.

"I don't take it nicely when people offend my friends," he said snidely.

 _Well, fuck you,_ I thought, without realizing that once again my innermost musing had been voiced aloud. Nick narrowed his eyes.

"What was that?" he said, danger dancing in his pure-black irises.

"I said, fuck you," I repeated, rising from the filthy hallway floor and trying to scrape congealed gum from my hoodie while still looking menacing.

"What?" Nick said, faking deafness.

I stepped up close to him and shouted in his ear, "FUCK YOU," loud and clear for the entire hallway to hear.

He crossed his arms. "Normally I'd take a frantic girl up on her offer to fuck me, but you're just a desperate, ugly whore."

Okay. I could take a train wreck of physical abuse from anyone I hate without getting too angry. I'm a tough person. But calling me a _whore,_ a _desperate, ugly whore_ , is crossing the line.

So my knee, which had been pretty twitchy throughout our entire conversation, took the opportunity to jerk up and close the distance between its usual position and Nick's dick.

The expression on his face spread in slow motion and he crumpled to the floor, clutching his bits and howling in pain. I continued my walk of pride down the hall and this time, no one tripped me.

Not because they didn't want to. No, everyone _loves_ tripping Max.

It's because Mr. Shitbag had been watching from his office door the whole time.

* * *

It turned out that I got three days of in-home suspension for kicking Nick in the dick.

That was actually quite fun to say – Kick Nick in the Dick. Kick Nick in the Dick. Kick… okay, I get it. But I thought that would make a great motto from then on. If I'm feeling angry, just imagine that I'm Kicking Nick in the Dick, and everything will be A-OK.

Ugh, you could definitely tell I had nothing to do during suspension. After a three-hour lecture on "unreasonable physical abuse inflicted upon fellow classmates" from my mother, a six-hour school session, and a buttload of chores, there's only so much a grounded teenage girl could do.

I tried drawing. My drawings all looked like horse shit that been trampled by a herd of elephants and then pissed on by a cat.

I tried cooking. I fucking burn _cereal_ while pouring in the milk. You know, spontaneous combustion.

I even tried whining at Iggy via the home phone, but being grounded meant no visits, and calling him wasn't enough.

I was bored out of my fucking mind. My brains were puddled all over the ground. My organs had short-circuited. Everything was terrible.

And I had a headache.

I sighed and went to root around in the refrigerator for the tenth time today. It'd been several hours since my last visit, since I had found a leftover box in the very back of the fridge filled with a thin layer of some green jelly-like material – the rest of the container was completely filled with fluffy white mold. After gagging up my lunch at the sight of the container, I had the sense to throw it out.

Stomach growling, I desperately wished that a large cheese pizza had appeared in the kitchen. I could probably call a deliveryman, but that might go against my Grounding Privilege.

Fuck it. My mother wasn't here, so it wouldn't matter.

I dialed the number on our old house phone, twirling the coiled cord as I waited.

"Thank you for calling Pizza Hut. This is Ashley. Will this be for pick-up or delivery?"

I winced at the overly-cheerful voice of "Ashley". "Delivery," I said, my unenthusiastic tone opposite to hers. "An extra-large cheese pizza, please."

She continued talking in her annoyingly cheery voice, telling me the price and delivery time. I zoned out and eventually hung up when she stopped talking, grabbing the cash from the side of the fridge. There's one great thing about having a vet as a mom – cash. Oh, and she's always out of the house. And the fact that she sometimes brings home cute puppies… and… yeah.

Lots of perks.

Anyways. I couldn't find anything to do with myself, so instead I experimented with more cereal and milk. I found that I didn't even need to add a teaspoon of milk to the small cup of cereal for it to start smoldering. Seconds later, fire would appear.

The doorbell rang and I raced to open it, abandoning the blazing cereal fire in the process. Oops. Hope it doesn't burn down the kitchen.

"Pizza!" I cried, throwing the door open and shoving the cash in the general direction of the delivery person and grabbing the extra-large pie, nearly jumping in excitement.

My terrible grounding and school suspension had just taken a turn for the better.

 _Pizza._

"Ride? What the fuck?"

Wait, scratch that. It's taken a turn for the worse.

* * *

 **HAPPY CHRISTMAS! Oops, did I trigger you? *Ahem*. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!**

 **This was your gift from me :P Kind of shitty, but whatever... it's the thought that counts.**

 **Hehe… anyone going to hazard a guess as to who that pizza delivery person is?**

 **Trying my best not to give up for you,**

 **Luce xx**


	2. Chapter 2

**HEY!**

 **Lucy here. Hope you're having a good week so far.**

 **Also, I promise I won't do the recaps all of the time unless you want me to. I honestly find them irritating and it feels like cheating on my word count.**

* * *

 _My terrible grounding and school suspension had just taken a turn for the better…pizza._

 _"Ride? What the fuck?"_

 _Wait, scratch that. It's taken a turn for the worse_.

"Imagine such a disgusting person living in such a nice area," Nick commented, clutching the pizza out of my reach. I was not an amazingly tall person, and he had a good six inches on me, making the pizza unreachable without the embarrassing act of jumping to reach it.

"I'm not some street vagrant, unlike you," I retorted, crossing my arms for two reasons – to show that I refused to hop and grab at the pizza like a child; and to keep myself from smashing his ugly face into a pulp. Believe me, I was twitching to do both… at the same time. "Now give me the pizza, you asshole."

"Ask nicely," he said, stretching the pizza above his head farther. It was then that I noticed his Pizza Hut delivery uniform.

"You look retarded in that," I said spontaneously. He paused for a second, somehow shocked by my statement. I took that opportunity to jump and snatch the pizza from his hand, and threw it into the house, slamming the door.

"Leave," I said, because the annoying bastard hadn't left the front porch yet. He frowned.

"Maxie, I know you from school, and this is my last delivery. Wouldn't it be considered… rude… to not invite me in?"

"There's no fucking way that you're coming in my house, you prick," I snarled, securing a hand on the doorknob, ready to go inside and eat pizza.

The thought hit me: damn, now he knows where I live.

I heard a familiar car on the street. _Maya!_ Maybe she could save me from this mess. Seemingly reading my mind, Nick turned to see Maya's expensive car pull into the driveway.

"It's your hot sister," he said, grinning.

"You do realize that we're nearly identical," I deadpanned.

"Yeah, but she's actually hot. You're more like… dog shit." Looking around, he pulled off his Pizza Hut hat and threw it into the topiary beside the porch… I guess he listened when I said his uniform looked retarded.

I hated to agree with him, but she _was_ the hot sister. She was two years older than me, and she's _much_ more attractive than me. She wore a D-cup and her waist was, like, a toothpick. Her feet were actually normal sized. And she's tall, but not grossly so. Otherwise, we had the same hair, eyes, and skin tone. She's the curvy, hot Barbie version of me.

"She doesn't go for younger, immature guys," I told him. It was, really, the truth. But I wasn't going to elaborate. We'd see when he decided to take action.

Nick rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his surprisingly non-greasy hair. If looks corresponded with personality, he'd be a troll. Unfortunately, he looked like an average emo with far too much of an ego to match his woe-is-me appearance.

"I'm, what, four months younger?" he said hopefully, but then seemed to realize he was talking to _me,_ and his face arranged into another predatory grin. "Anyways, all the little inexperienced virgins should go inside now. The adults are going to talk."

I curled my hands into fists. This conversation had run on too long, but there was no way I was going back in. "What makes you think I'm inexperienced?"

He stroked his chin in a faux imitation of thinking – his molecule-size brain wasn't capable of such a task, obviously. "Oh, you're right, I forgot. You're a whore. We cleared that up… oh, about yesterday?"

"Yeah, we also cleared up… that I have plenty of _experience…_ with dicks. Kneeing dicks, that is."

His gaze hardened, probably remembering the dick-crippling blow I'd gifted him with at school. Believe me, that hadn't been the first time, but he never seemed to learn.

Cue Maya's door opening. She was wearing a purple knit turtleneck crop-top, which was honestly _hideous,_ but seemed to be the in fashion wherever she spent her days; and _very_ ripped jean shorts. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to call my sister a slut, but she… hm… definitely flaunted her assets. Her sandals matched the outfit.

"Maxie!" she said, running over to me to hug me, ignoring Nick.

"Maya hun, it's fifty degrees out. You must be freezing," I teased. She smiled.

"I know. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking earlier. I guess my slutty side is showing today."

We separated and I pointed at Nick. "Maya, this is the pizza delivery man. I got us an extra-large cheese pizza."

Her smile widened.

"Actually, Maxie here was just going to invite me inside, because my shift is over and it's cold out here."

"Oh, really? Maxie was?" Maya turned her head to wink at me. "Come on in."

I gritted my teeth. "I was not. And he's not getting _any_ of my pizza."

Maya held open the door for him. "Nick, was it?" she asked. "I remember you from school. You were… two years below me? I guess you didn't quite get the best grades for a while there."

"I'm seventeen," he reminded her.

"And a half. Yes, I know." By now, we were seated in the living room: me, solo on the armchair, and Nick sitting hopefully next to Maya. I held the pizza like it was a lifeline.

"Why don't you offer some pizza to Nick," Maya suggested innocently. "He worked so hard, for hours probably. Slaving over a hot… um… pizza oven." By now it was very obvious that she was being _extremely_ sarcastic – pretending to not know about our special hatred for each other.

"Yes. Pizza oven. Hand it over, Maxie," Nick said, leaning to receive the absolute _smallest_ slice of pizza I could peel from my precious pie.

I shoved two slices into my mouth at once, right as the phone rang.

"I'll get it!" I volunteered, but my exact words didn't really sound like that around the pizza. Whatever. At least I had an excuse to not be around Nick. I'd drag out this damn phone conversation for an extra hour if it meant staying away from him.

I ran into the kitchen. "Hello?"

"Hello! Would I be able to interest you in Home-Guard security services today?"

Oh, goody. An attempt to make me buy something. "I'm so glad you called! I want the heaviest security money can buy." I love these guys. It's fun messing with them.

After a long and confusing conversation in which I pretended to be a drunk old man who thought the aliens were coming to kill us all, they hung up. _Victory!_ I love feeding them the craziest bullshit that I can come up with. There's a sad thing about defeating this particular telemarketer, though: I'll have to return to the living room, where Maya is probably having a very condescending, falsely sweet conversation with Nick.

"My job at Starbucks is going _very_ well. Thank you for asking! How's your work at the Hut?"

Yep, she still sounds like she's talking to a three-year-old.

"It's, uh, pizza-y." Nick said retardedly, probably because Maya was sitting not even an _inch_ away from him.

"I feel like I've seen you at Starbucks before. I should buy you a coffee someday. I think you'd love to meet my girlfriend, you have _so_ much in common."

At that, Nick started choking on his pizza.

"Oh, Max! I didn't hear you coming back. Who was calling?"

I sat back in the armchair, cradling the pizza box to my chest. "It was Home-Guard security. Did you know we live in one of the most dangerous areas in all of the United States when it comes to crime?"

"I didn't," said Maya, in her sugar-sweet voice, and glanced at Nick, who was still gagging on the rogue pizza chunk. "The more you know," she said as she whacked him in the back with her fist, perfectly manicured nails gleaming in the light.

For once, I sort of felt a sliver bad for him – he'd been invited for coffee by my sister, who he had the definite hots for, and learned that she was a lesbian in the same sentence. Oh, well.

The pizza dislodged – a shame – and she started rubbing his back. "There, there. You should be more careful while you chew," she soothed him, like some sort of parent.

"I've got to go," he said, standing up. "I have something to do."

"Do you mean, _someone_ to do?" I call after him as he lets himself out the door. "Nicky, don't go wasting all of your hard-earned Pizza Hut money on some nasty prostitute!"

He turned to glare at me, red-faced, before slamming the door.

Maya and I collapsed into giggles on the couch.

* * *

Later that night, me and Maya went to her room and hung out. We hadn't done so in a long time – coming home from college only on weekends left little time to talk. She laid on the bed and I rested against it, staring at her stuff.

"So, fighting, huh?" she asked, referring to the incident in which I Kicked Nick's Dick. Well, more like kneed, but whatever. It's funner to say.

"Yeah," I said.

"That's the third time this month," she said. I leaned back from my place on the floor to study the old posters curling off of her walls and ceiling. Some of them were _really_ old, for bands and celebrities she liked in middle school, and some of them were newer, for things like her college and assorted sports teams.

"I want to propose a challenge," she stated, nudging me with her foot. "You have to hold off from fighting for the rest of the month. If you do – "

"Hold up. With just Nick, or anyone?" I wasn't sure I wanted to agree to a challenge where I had to _stop fighting altogether._

"Just him," she said, probably for my sanity's sake. "If Mom doesn't get a single call from the guidance counselor - about him, at least - until the end October, I will take you out for lunch at the all-you-can-eat pizza shop _and then_ to the ice cream buffet."

Holy crap. That was like offering me the Holy Grail filled with water from the Fountain of Bad-Ass-ery on a silver platter.

"But there's a catch," I guessed.

"Correct. If you do end up fighting again before November 1st, I will get to give you a makeover."

I winced. Maya's idea of a makeover consisted of hair dye, piercings, and total wardrobe flips. Not, you know, a bit of mascara and a borrowed tank top. Like, serious shit.

On one hand, there was free unlimited pizza and ice cream for a whole lunch. On the other, there was the possibility of having purple hair by the end of the day. Both choices were weighted down with the responsibility of not fighting for almost two weeks.

"So?" she prompted, twirling her hair and peering over the bed at me.

"Give me a minute," I sighed.

"C'mon, Maxie-pad. Free pizza and ice cream. All you can eat. All you have to do is not fight for ten whole days, half of which are weekends."

I groaned. "Fine. But you have to promise not to make the makeover too bad if I lose. And no backing out if I win."

She grinned wickedly. "Too late. You already agreed to the challenge."

I pretended to smack her, which she dodged anyways.

"Let's go watch a movie," she suggested. I nodded, and we headed downstairs.

* * *

 **Max, what have you gotten into?!**

 **I decided to change things up a bit! Why not let Maya be a lesbian? Was there even a** ** _SINGLE_** **explicitly-stated LGBTQ+ person in canon Maximum Ride? I mean, Iggy doesn't count, because we all know he's gay, even though JP never said so…**

 **Don't forget about your daily dose of death metal, loves!**

 **luce xx**


	3. Chapter 3

**I can't believe it's almost 2017! My life has changed SO FUCKING MUCH in a year (well, mostly since I turned twelve, which is a tad bit more than a year, but whatever).**

* * *

I'd almost made it through the whole week just fine until Friday. That was the day during which our _high school,_ filled with kids fourteen through nineteen, forced everyone out for weekly recess.

Yes, you heard me correctly. Every Friday, us students are forced out of our classes for one hour to "hang out" and "get exercise". Yeah, right. Everyone usually just climbs up the hill and lay there for the whole sixty minutes. Girls work on their tans and guys do… guyish stuff, I don't know.

So that's what me, Iggles, Gazzy, and Nudge do. I guess my tan could use some work, um, right? So me and Nudge pull off our jackets and try to get as much to show as possible without outright taking our shirts off too. Luckily, I'm wearing a tank top. We lie on our stomachs and pick at the grass while Iggles and Gazzy fool around with a tree that has several suspiciously dick-like appendages growing from it.

Yeah, I can be girly-ish when I want. After all, with the cool breeze and the warm sun hitting my back and shoulders at the same time, it feels nice up here, high where the soccer-playing jocks look like little bugs. Nudge's curly hair keeps tickling my arms, but other than that, it's nice.

"Oh, god! There's two dicks!" Iggy cries, pointing to another appendage higher up on the tree, at – well, dick-height.

"Three!" Gazzy shouted, hopping onto the second dick to reach another dick higher up.

"Y'all are the dicks," I mumble lazily, murdering a small flower and throwing it into my pile of dead grass.

"Oooh, look at all of the tree sap oozing out of it," said Iggy, pointing to the lowest dick on the tree.

Gazzy giggled and poked the sap with a stick, proceeding to wipe it on Iggy.

"Ew!" Iggy whined. "Now you got tree sperm all over me!"

I hoisted myself onto my elbows, because watching them was quite amusing. I laughed as Iggy chased Gazzy with a stick full of tree sap. But I stopped when a dark shadow fell over me.

I rolled over to face the person – I had a good idea of who it was.

"Well, if it isn't Nicholas! If we kept meeting each other like this, I'd almost say you're following me around!" I squealed in a voice falsely sweet enough to rival Maya's.

He frowned. "Why would I ever follow such a bitch around? No, I just felt like hanging out for a while, but you're in my favorite place to sit."

"Well, you can find somewhere else to sit. I was here first."

"No." he said. "This is the only place on the hill with actual grass."

"The grass can fuck itself," I said, sitting up and feeling the said grass fall down my shirt and into my bra. Eugh. I crossed my arms.

"Who's your friend?" he said, staring at Nudge. My god, he went from wanting to shag my sister to staring down Nudge's shirt rather quickly.

Nudge raised her middle finger without even glancing at him.

"Well, then," he said, mock hurt. "I really want you to move, Maxie." He bent down to snatch my sweater, and held it over his head again.

"Give me back my sweater," I snarled. He's a fucking idiot if he wants to play this game again.

"Move and I will," he bargained.

"How about, no fucking way." I replied.

"Have it your way, then," he said, moving to sit down _right on top of me._ Uh, _hell no._ Faster than his slow brain could probably comprehend, I rolled out from under his ass's destination, and waited for him to fall on his butt. Predictably, he did, and I pounced on him, locking myself over him.

"Hey, Gaz, hand me that stick," I said, reaching for the sperm– er, sap –covered branch. He handed it to me and I held it like a weapon, moving my knee farther up on Nick's chest to keep him from struggling. Ig came to help keep him still. With one hand, I held his angrily glaring face still. With the other, I painted sap across his face, covering every inch that I could with the sticky material.

"FUCKING HELL!" he yelled, whipping his face away from me. I smiled and started piling my dead grass onto the sap, giving him a sort of sappy little grass mask.

"Max!" Iggy yelled in warning, but it was too late.

"Excuse me, but what do you think you're doing!?" exclaimed a shrill voice that sounded suspiciously like my English teacher's.

Oh, great.

* * *

"This is going to be _so_ fun," Maya said, cracking her knuckles and tying the plastic hair-cutting cape around my neck. It was choking me, but she threatened to cut my hair like a boy's if I grumbled too much. Apparently, she was only putting in "layers". What, is my head now an onion or something?

I winced as tiny hair pieces fell down my neck and got stuck in my clothes. This was a horrible idea. I should've just hidden out at Iggy's until Maya forgot about our agreement.

 _Snip._ Maya barely misses my ear, which she earlier mentioned getting pierced. At least she doesn't want any bit of my face pierced – and she's paying. Secretly, I wouldn't mind getting a second set of ear piercings.

"I'm going to put highlights in after this, and then you can go shower. I grabbed all of your toiletries before we left." Maya, who aspires to be some sort of crazy fusion of fashion designer/hairstylist/makeover professional, has her own apartment just to conduct this sort of torture in. Surrounding me are shelves of scary-looking beauty products: hair dye, shampoos, an army's worth of hair dryers, curlers, and straighteners, and buckets and buckets of makeup.

Trust her to cover my toiletries, she's thought of everything. Literally everything. I catch sight of a container of what are probably eyelash curlers but could pass for medieval torture devices.

Maya yanks a lock of hair into place and I groan silently. The day was going to drag on _forever._

It started with my hair – a trim, style, and highlights. It continued with a torturous manicure, where Maya used some strange light to fix bright red polish onto my finger and toe nails, claiming it would stay on "forever" – not a very comforting thought. Then she moved onto plucking my "uni-brow", waxing my "mustache" (neither of those terms were my idea) and forced me to shave my "hairy" legs.

Later, she completed more temporary tasks, like curling my eyelashes and putting on makeup.

"Maxie, get ready, we're going to go shopping now!" she squealed. Great, now we're going to go stand in a store and waste money for several hours.

* * *

Maya was smart and waited till the end of the trip to get my ears pierced. It hurt like shit and I definitely would've groaned the whole time if we'd gotten them first.

On one side, I got a second lobe piercing. On the other, I got a cartilage piercing. We hauled several bags to the car – well, Maya hauled the bags, I whined about how I'd rather be at home watching Spongebob.

"Max, I will never buy you pizza again if you don't embrace your wardrobe change. You must promise to _not wear_ a single hoodie or pair of sweats until next week."

 _A whole seven days of looking fashionable and wearing Victoria's Secret underwear?_

It was going to be absolute torture.

* * *

 **Sorry, this was basically a filler chapter. Hey, it'll give Fang something to look at, though…**

 **This'll sound stupid, but tell someone they matter today. Or any day, really,**

 **Luce xx**


	4. Chapter 4

**HELL-O! THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL REVIEWS! Especially you, Atherena. Thanks. You matter too!**

 **Also, I'm terribly sorry to say this, but once Winter Break stops and school kicks up I'm probably not going to be able to update** ** _as often._** **I have a few chapters written up for y'all, but just warning you.**

 **Oh, and time to enact PLAN MIGGY! Bwahahahahaaaaaa…**

* * *

I woke to the shrill pitch of Maya screaming for me to wake up. Oh, right. She didn't have any classes on Monday. Lucky bastard.

She had an outfit laid out on the bed for me. I cringed at the sight of a turtleneck sweater thing that matched her purple one exactly, except that it was black. Ew. Luckily, the alarmingly ripped grey jeans that accompanied it were full-length, even if their fronts were all but completely torn away.

My pure black Convese high-tops had been pulled from a remote location in my room, probably from under eight feet of shitty laundry. Yep, I like my room to be a pigsty. Maya, of all people had the guts to actually dig in and find clothes for me.

"You'd better wear all of it. When you're dressed, I'm going to do your makeup… and accessorize!"

Ew, ew, ew. I really hated being Maya's dress-up doll. I suddenly wished I'd just let Nick terrorize me and ignore him for once, like I was supposed to. I'd really fucked up this time.

Yeah. I'd not only won a once-in-a-lifetime Maya Makeover, but a trip to the school shrink during study hall tomorrow. Hopefully, they would deem me sane and let me go quickly.

"Max, hurry up!" Maya screeched, banging on the door impatiently as I wrestled into the ripped skinny jeans, my toes getting caught in every hole down the leg. "At this rate, you'll only have two hours for makeup before school starts!"

Two hours? _Two hours?_ Give me two minutes on any Monday morning and I'll be ready to go. But _two hours?_ What exactly does her idea of "makeup" include?

"You're a madwoman," I muttered, cursing her as I tried to make sense of the fancy, slutty-looking black bra she was forcing me to wear. I don't even know why, seeing as this fucking turtleneck covers everything… but my stomach.

After five more minutes of attempting to get on the Outfit From Hell, I opened the door, to reveal Maya, who'd probably been there the whole time, listening to me struggle.

"It sounded like you were having sex in there," she said helpfully. I buried my face in my hands, hoping that if I ignored her it would all be OK.

No, it was not OK. Because having your hair blown, straightened, curled, straightened again, and then partially curled in rapid succession is awful. (And then she put it in a "messy bun" that took ten minutes to make – no one was even going to see those stupid curls.) So is being slimed with lipstick that stays on for twenty-four hours, some filmy tan liquid, and several black sticks that got way too close to my eyes. Oh, and I was also assaulted with an eyelash curler more than once.

I really wanted to disappear by the time she was seeing me off at the door, thankfully giving me a "stylish" flannel jacket to tie around my waist for "modesty". The second I was out of her sight, I untied the jacket and buttoned it up like a normal person. It did look kind of stupid because of the turtleneck, which was peeking out of the top and gagging me like some demented, knitted noose; but it was better than going to school half-naked.

I didn't have anything to hide my legs with now. I didn't know if my school had a dress code, but I did know that some of those holes definitely went above the fingertips. Ew, what about in Gym? I don't have any gym clothes, and I can't afford for my sit-up partner to see up the holes.

 _Legs or stomach? Legs or stomach? I'm going with legs._

I texted Nudge. _Get ready to hurl your breakfast, Maya took over my wardrobe and I look awful._

She replied back: _Um Maya's my role model, nothing she does looks awful._

I rolled my eyes. _Tell that to me once I get to school._

* * *

"MAXMAXMAXMAXMAX OH-EM-GEE! IS THAT YOU?"

I winced at the high-pitched screech of Nudge, who stood just inside the school gates. Most of my friend group did – we were, for the most part, misfits. At least, the ones that never got popular. At my school, being weird is normally considered cool, if you can pull it off.

I will admit I'm not cut out to be popular.

Nudge is one of the only people who divides her time between the Preps and the Misfits. She's cool and weird enough to be both.

"Yes, Nudgiekins, It's me," I sighed as she squeezed me into a giant hug. "Um, you're going to kill me."

Iggy ran over. "W-w-what's th-this?" he fake-stuttered. "A prep, here? What's a prep doing over here with us weirdos?"

I rolled my eyes. "Iggy, it's me, Max," I said. "Um, the Maya-fied version of me."

He gasped dramatically as Nudge continued her shrieking. "OHMYGOD YOU LOOK SO HOT!"

"Iggles, can I borrow your hoodie?"

"Uh, no."

"Why? Please." I pleaded with him.

"No," he said, but then I started chasing him. Foolishly, he ran away from me. Poor little Iggles didn't know that I used to run in track and still could run, sorta fast.

We ran across the campus, out to the soccer field. He made it halfway up the steep hill when I tackled him, jumping onto his back.

"Piggy-back ride!" I screeched, locking my legs around his waist. Grumbling in defeat, he hooked his arms under my legs and I wrapped mine around his shoulders. We'd done it many times before – that's what accompanies ten years of strong friendship (and, I suppose, a semi-strong Iggy, even though I only weigh 105 pounds).

"What's it like being tall?" he said, smirking up at me. "Do you now wish you weren't a midget?"

"Well, it's vaguely uncomfortable, but otherwise nice," I said, wiggling in his grip. "And you know perfectly well I wish I was taller." I held on hard as he loosened his hold on me.

"I'll drop you," he warned as we made our way past a large crowd of giggling preps.

"You would not dare, Igneous James Griffiths. I would tell your mother."

He gasped. "You would not!"

Right then, I saw a certain black-haired bastard approach us.

"Asshole at 9-o'clock. Watch out," I said, tugging his hair to steer him away.

"Well, well, well," Nick said, approaching us with a strange look on his face. "Maxiekins, what's the occasion?"

I glared at him from my perch on Ig's back. "A girl can look pretty sometimes, you know."

"Pretty?" he snarled, but it sounded almost half-hearted. "Pretty slutty, yes, but not particularly pretty."

Cue girl wearing a crop top that cropped before her bra even stopped, and a skirt that did a similar thing with her underwear; who latched onto his arm and batted her eyelashes at him.

"You were saying?" I said sweetly.

He rolled his eyes. Iggy took that as a cue to eject me from his back.

"Iggy!" I yelled, picking myself off the ground. But Iggy was stepping towards Nick with a horrible look in his eyes.

"How dare you?" Iggy roared. Nick looked back at him with a disappointingly calm expression on his face.

"How dare I speak the truth? Maxie looks slutty. That's the truth."

I saw Ig's fists curling and I quickly dragged him away from Nick. "Look, I don't need some shining knight to save me from a lowly scumbag. I'm not a fucking damsel in distress. I can beat the shit out of him any time I want to."

"But – "

"Are you sure about that, Maxie? I'm a pretty strong person."

"Shut your face, Nick. I've put you on the floor crying more times than I can count on two hands and a foot."

"By playing dirty," he said.

"Yeah? Want to see what damage I can do, besides making you unable to have children? Believe me, Nicholas, I can do much worse."

His eyes widened. _I know right? What could be worse than breaking his dick?_

"I can embarrass you in front of your friends," I said. "I can seek revenge upon your face…" I was circling him now.

"For every… single… petty… thing… you've ever done to me," I whispered, close to him. I was slightly surprised at how collected he was, because right then, in that moment, I felt like some unstoppable, sexy, dangerous thing I'd never felt around him before. I'd always felt insignificant and unable to fight before today. Sure, I'd fought with words, but I'd never threatened him back.

 _Thank you, Maya._

"I can finally show everyone that I'm more than your little victim. I can tell people all of your secrets. I know what makes you twitch, Nick. Two years of trying to stand up to you can tell me things like that."

I opened my mouth but I was stopped.

"Shut the fuck up," he said. Sure, I was bluffing a little bit. I didn't really know what made him twitch, except for being stood up to like this. But saying it made me feel more important.

I leaned in close. "So, what's it going to be? Are you going to back down and look like a little bitch in front of your friends? Or are you going to be broken under my hands for once?"

He finally snapped. "You're the little bitch," he said.

It was then that I heard the "FIGHT!" chant ringing through the crowd that had gathered around us. It fueled me even more.

"WHOA! Whoa, whoa, whoa. Break it up, kids," said some man I'd never seen before in my life. "You know fights aren't permitted on campus."

I glared at Nick. He returned the notion.

"We're finishing this," he said as I took a step back. "Tonight at the old hangar."

I nodded in confirmation.

God, what had I gotten myself into?

* * *

 **dUN dUN dUN… they're going to fight! Hehe…**

 **OMG THAT CHAPTER WAS ALMOST 2,000 WORDS WHICH IS LIKE SO LONG CAUSE I CANT WRITE SO YAY!111111ONEONEoneone**

 **Luce xx**

 **(Btw, HAPPY EARLY NEW YEAR! Here's to having great friends, being yourself, and getting older (but not too fast). And also, sounding really stupid and cheesy.)**

 **Self Promotion: Read "Baking Cookies" by... ME! Just fluff. Stupid fluff...**


	5. Chapter 5

**I know, a short, excessive update, but I'm almost 100% sure I can't update till Monday, so deal with it XD**

* * *

After a dinner which consisted of only myself and a frozen pizza (Maya was MIA), I went upstairs and tried to find an outfit that would be ideal for fighting. I hadn't ever _really fought_ , but I knew that restrictment was not very fun. So, goodbye, turtleneck and ripped jeans. I also replaced the ugly, lacy black bra with a much-preferred sports bra.

My hair… what do to with my hair? A ponytail would suffice.

Also, what time had he meant by _tonight?_ Most likely late. Later than 6:30, probably. But I'd want to get to the hangar fairly early to scope out my surroundings. I'd never been inside, but I knew it was basically a giant empty building where some smaller planes had been stored back in the day. It was generally the area where shady things happened between sundown and sunrise.

I wonder if Nick had a booking there or something, because I certainly didn't want to cross paths with any drug dealers, and I was guessing he probably didn't either. We'll see.

* * *

The hangar was huge. There was a concave place in the corner, about a foot deeper than the rest of the building, that was probably fifteen by fifteen feet wide. I didn't really know why it was there, but judging by the faded bloodstains in it, it was probably where the fight was going down.

I decided to camp out there until he arrived, formulating a strategy. I would pounce on him immediately, hoping to get him on the floor. I'd sit on him like before to make sure he didn't get up, and then would be the fun of ruining his pretty little face. The only flaw in my plan was that my weight wasn't exactly on my side – at a buck five, it wouldn't prove difficult to haul me off of him.

Hmm… maybe I could use the _power of seduction._ Gag. But he did have a thing for people who looked like Maya, and that was something I could use to my advantage. Like… stripping down to my sports bra. Not that I had nice boobs or anything, but maybe the extra skin would get him distracted.

Haha. Yeah right.

The door creaked open and a strawberry-blond head poked in. _Iggy._ He ran over to me, sitting beside me on the ground, enveloping me in a hug.

"Please don't do this. I don't want you to get hurt," he said.

"Are you fucking kidding? I could beat circles around Nick Walker all day. He's all talk." But I returned the hug, knowing that Iggy sometimes had Overprotective Moments. A lot like my mother, actually.

"Don't let him break your face, Maxie. Give it your all," he whispered into my hair. I nodded into his chest – damn his extra twelve inches! – and promised that I'd win.

"You'd better. Here he comes," Iggy said, looking up and peering at Nick, who entered with great pomp, like he was some king. At least a hundred students followed him, all chattering and laughing. I felt sick as I detached from Iggy and stood up, pulling him with me.

"It's time," I said, meeting Nick in the little fighting arena.

"Yeah," he said, shrugging off his leather jacket and throwing it into the gathering crowd.

Right. Enact part one of my plan. I tore off my t-shirt, tossing it in the same general direction, and watched Nick's eyes get wider. He recovered, smirking, and followed by taking off his shirt, too. However, I wasn't about to let his, uh, _very puny muscles,_ distract me. Right?

Right. I took a breath. The crowd was chanting _FIGHT_ again.

Nick cracked his knuckles. I rolled my shoulders.

"It's time," I repeated.

Then I launched myself onto him. He went down like a domino, toppling, completely surprised. I didn't actually expect that to work, but I suspect the sudden launching of my boobs into his face had something to do with it.

I heard something crack when we hit the hard, poured concrete floor. I think it was him. But he didn't stay down, dammit. He rose again.

 _Crack._ I'd forgotten to defend my face, and there went my nose. I gasped and reciprocated, landing a good punch on his face. I could feel blood running down my face. Fuck _. Now or never, Max._ A cheer rang through the hanger.

I kicked out, connecting with his shin. He fell to the floor again, and I took the opportunity this time. He was thrashing as I kicked his side, again and again. The crowd went wild, but somehow refrained from spilling into the fight.

He grabbed my leg, wheezing, and I fell, unbalanced. He peeled himself from the floor and kept me down, moving to punch my already injured nose. _Nope._ I yanked away from him, eager to switch positions and start beating the crap out of him. In moments he was incapacitated under me.

I punched him once. _For every time he's made fun of me._ Again. _Slut._ Again. _Whore._ Again. _Boring, little Maxie._ Again. _Bitch._ Again. _Every time I've wanted him to die._ Again.

I wasn't even sure if he was still alive.

"Stop!" a girl cried, and a muscly dude came in and pulled me, kicking and thrashing, from Nick. There was blood all over me. Someone dragged Nick through the crowd. The whole hangar was in disarray and everyone was screaming and gasping.

I regretted nothing.

* * *

 **Sorry you had to read that. I've never fought or watched a fight in my life so you'll have to forgive me. *cringe paradise*.**

 **On a happy note, my recent finding that I rather enjoy 90's rock has put me on a music high all day. When I was a child this was all my parents listened to in the car and now I feel nostalgic.**

 **I never knew it was humanly possible to listen to this much Green Day in a 24-hour period.**

 **Luce xx**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello there! I haven't talked to y'all since last year…**

 ***crickets chirping***

 **Yeah, I know, my jokes aren't funny.**

 **Thanks for all of your reviews chica-flick! You're an awesome person!**

* * *

Adrenaline coursed through my veins. I felt so _good_ after beating the shit out of Nick. It was as if all of my hatred and anger toward him had been channeled from me and into each of those punches.

I felt so light and happy. And jittery.

"Iggy!" I cried as he ran over to me. He dragged me off the ground and to a small cluster of people, where a girl sat on the floor, cross-legged with a first-aid kit in her lap.

"Fix her," he demanded.

"Shut up, Iggy," I said, wrestling my way from him and glaring. "Ignore him, he's an overprotective ass. But yeah, can I get something for my nose?"

She dug through the kit. "It doesn't look out of position, so I don't think it's too bad." She took out one of those ice packs that you break to make it cold, whacking it against the ground and handing it to me. "Put this on it."

Ha. Nick punches like a sissy. He can't even properly break a nose.

Speaking of him… someone deposited him next to the girl, who immediately began wrapping him up. His eyes were swelling shut. His nose looked a tad crooked. I could guess some of his ribs weren't cooperating, judging by his shallow, shaky breaths.

"Gotta hand it to you, Ride. You're not bad," he said in a hoarse voice.

"I told you," I said. "A year of hatred all came slamming out in one go. Now you know how I feel about you."

"I hardly think that this compensates for a bit of teasing."

"There's a difference between teasing and bullying, Nick."

"Bullying? You think I was _bullying you_?"

"I don't _think,_ I _know._ Now stop playing stupid. I'm done with you."

"Wait."

"I'm not waiting. You've called me a slut and a whore so many times I've become immune to it. You've tripped me, ruined my shoes, and provoked me on a weekly basis. You've called me fat, flipped me off, and offended my friends. I'm going to inform you: I weigh one-hundred and five pounds and I've never had sex, much less a boyfriend. And I'm done with you, Nick."

And that was my dramatic exit.

* * *

After a quick shower to scrub off all of the blood, I flopped onto my bed. The adrenaline was far gone. My hands were throbbing and split in some places, which I'd tried to remedy by slathering them in lotion because I had zero medical skills.

I prayed that my nose, which now had a plaster on it courtesy of Ice Pack Girl's advice, would be back to normal by the end of the week – when my mother came back from her trip. That along with the other minor injuries I'd acquired in the fight. Some of them, I could just pass off as the result of my clumsiness. However, some of them would make my mother wonder if I dealt drugs or joined gangs in her absence.

 _Time for some cookies._ Yeah, I was kind of addicted to cookies. Chocolate chip in particular. Since I didn't have anyone here to make them for me… I had to settle for store-bought.

 _Wait, Iggy!_ He'd recently been whining about a culinary class, during which he was forced to make cookies for a grade.

I called him. "Hey, uh, Iggy. Can you come over? It's kind of an emergency."

* * *

"You know, when you said 'emergency', I thought of something along the lines of blood, broken bones, or 'I've fallen and I can't get up', not you needing t fulfill your cookie addiction," grumbled Iggy, beating the flour into the batter.

I did my best to make puppy-dog eyes at him. "My mom isn't home till tomorrow and I'm in withdrawal. I can't survive off store-bought forever!"

He sighed, and began scooping the dough onto the trays. He moved at the pace of a snail, probably deliberately.

"How much longer?" I whined, hovering over him as he slipped two trays into the oven. "I need cookies."

"Shh," he said, wiping his hands on his legs, leaving behind streaks of flour. "If you don't stay quiet, the cookies might, you know, _accidentally burn_ or something."

"Yeah, right, Iggles," I said, snatching a handful of chocolate chips from our bulk-size bag. Bulk's the only way to go when you eat as many cookies as me. "You wouldn't dare let the cookies burn."

"Watch me," he said, waggling his eyebrows.

I reached around him to grab the glass bottle of pepper flakes from the spice rack. "Watch me shove all of these down your throat at once," I said, shaking it threateningly in his face. Iggy hated spicy stuff – at least, he claimed to hate it. I personally think he's just too chicken to man up and eat anything spicier than a Mild Sauce packet from Taco Bell.

His face went white, which was a near-impossible feat because he was already the world's palest human. "No," he whispered, and I started unscrewing the cap. For the next ten minutes, I chased him through the living room, up the stairs, through the hallways, past my room, up another flight of stairs, and then all the way back down. I never caught him.

"The cookies… might… be burnt…" he wheezed, bending down and clutching his side. I shot into the kitchen. _Shit._ They did look a bit brown… actually, a lot brown, way browner than they were probably supposed to be.

"IGGY! HURRY!"

* * *

 **Sorry about the shitty, short chapter.**

 **Luce xx**


	7. Chapter 7

OMG IM SO SORRY ALL OF YOU.

I AM THE WORST FUCKING PERSON EVER. I KNOW.

A lot of shit has happened in my life since December 31st.

For one, my computer took a shit on me and deleted everything. (I think that's happened to every author on fanfiction.)

Also, I had a girlfriend for precisely 3 hours, but I wasn't counting.

I PROMISE YOU AN UPDATE BEFORE VALENTINE'S IS OVER! Because I love y'all…

 ***deep inhale***

time for some alt-j, caf coffee, and a big brick of chocolate… i'ma write some more…

XX FOREVER ALONE AND EMO

~~LUCE~~

Also, HOLY FUCK I AM SORRY.

(sorry if i seem hyper ive only ingested soda in the last 16 hours)


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry, I really am a goddamn human sack of shit.**

 **I promised a chapter by… well… a while ago… and now it's today…**

 **I don't even have an excuse. Just school shit. Sorry guys.**

After a liberal amount of scraping, the burnt cookies finally gave way to the metal spatula and fell into the garbage. Iggy swore and scowled at me. "This is your fault, Maximum Martinez-Ride," he said. But he exclaimed it in such a sassy way that it wasn't really rude.

Iggy was the sassiest person I knew. He was like a strawberry-blond Gerard Way. He emanated sass like the sun did UV rays. Usually, he was serious, but when you really hung out with him, he'd put on the Sass Mask and take off from there.

"Goddamn," he said, scooping more dough onto the tray. "If you hadn't chased me with those damn pepper flakes, you would've had some cookies by now."

I put my hands on my hips and pretended to kick him. "I wouldn't have chased you with the damn flakes if you hadn't provoked me."

"Bullshit," he said, slamming shut the oven. Right then, my phone went off. I smacked his arm and bounced off to the speaker dock where my phone sat, charging and softly playing death metal as a nice sort of background noise.

 _Lissa: Hey maxie! Its been a while. Im on my way over!_

Hey, Lissa! She's Maya's ex, but also a pretty nice girl in the grade above me. We've had our fair share of Awkward Party Meetings and Smart Kid Group Projects together. Sometimes we hang at lunch. She's stayed true to the Lesbian Relationship stereotype and continued to be friends – well, occasionally an on-and-off-lover, too – with Maya.

 _Max: Coming to see maya? Shell actually be here tonight ;)_

 _Lissa: what am I not allowed to hang out with my friend Maxi-pad?_

 _Max: Fuck no if you keep calling me that name._

 _Lissa: Hehe anything you say Maxi-pad._

"BOO!"

I screamed and dropped my phone on the floor. Yes, I, Maximum Martinez Ride, screamed like a little girl and dropped my precious iPhone on the floor because I was too engrossed in texting to notice Igneous Fucking Griffith sneak up on me.

"IGGY, I AM GOING TO FUCKING MURDER YOU ONCE YOU FINISH MAKING ME THESE COOKIES." I yelled, picking up my phone and inspecting it for cracks (none, thankfully) before flinging it back onto the dock and turning to face him.

I started stalking him into the corner, and he walked backward with his hands up to protect himself. "I didn't mean to do that, I swear," he said, all traces of sass gone. If he wasn't afraid of me, he was doing quite a good job at pretending he was.

"GAHHHHHH!" I screamed and launched myself at him, and he gave an equally girly scream as his skinny body hit the floor with me on top.

"Every time I come over it ends up like this," he said weakly as I moved to sit on his chest, which wasn't very comfortable, but whatever.

"What, with me as the winner and you as the assclown who's been knocked on the ground?" I taunted, finding a more comfortable way to sit on him. I didn't actually want to hurt him, just embarrass him, so my weight really did come in handy as I gently squished his chest.

Unfortunately, he – out of nowhere – decided to reach up and _poke me in the stomach._ I squealed and toppled off him, collapsing on the floor next to him. I reached over to pull him into a headlock –

"Well, well, well," I heard a smug-sounding female voice from above me. "Finally gettin' some? Maxi-pad's all grown up!"

I glared up at none other than Alyssa Wilson standing above me with her hands on her hips, face screwed in silent laughter. I then realized how Iggy and I appeared: lying on the floor, legs tangled, chests flush to each other, my hands on his face. My face turned red. "It's not what it looks like," I muttered, rolling away from a bemused (and amused) Iggy and sitting up. Then I saw another face – one that I really, really didn't want to see right then.

I scrambled up from the floor, and suddenly realized what I was wearing and it made me even redder. I ignored that for a second and grabbed a knife from the nearest knife set.

"What the fuck is _he_ doing here?" I shrieked, stabbing it through the air at Nick. I probably looked ridiculous, wearing nothing but a giant man's button-down as a dress, with a hastily chosen murder weapon in my hand, but I was a woman with a mission. A mission to kill Nicholas Walker.

"Calm _down,_ and put away the knife for fuck's sake," Lissa said, swatting at the blade. I ignored her and turned to face Nick, livid and ready to stab at will. I gave Nick credit, he really did look pretty put together, especially because he'd had his ass kicked by me yesterday, and I was currently threatening to stab him with a knife. "I invited him."

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow but didn't lower the knife. "Why would you invite this little shit to my house?"

Lissa shrugged. "Uh, we're friends?" She glanced at Nick, who honestly didn't look like he wanted to be here very much, despite his put-together-ness. "I didn't really tell him where we were going."

I groaned, pushing up my sleeves and placing the knife on the bar countertop. "Get him out."

"No, he's a guest, you can't make him leave," Lissa argued.

"I wouldn't mind leaving," Nick said.

Lissa smacked his arm. "Shut up." He winced and staggered back a few steps. I wondered if there was a bruise there.

I heard the oven door shut and Iggy appeared, placing a tray of cookies on the bar and grabbing the knife away. "Eat your cookies, Max," he said, sliding them on to a plate and pushing it at me. I jumped onto a stool and started packing them down, but I continued to glare at Nick.

"Let's, uh, just do something that won't allow you to murder each other," Lissa said weakly, probably now realizing how bad an idea it was to bring him into my sight. "TV till your sister gets here?" She asked hopefully.

"I guess," I sighed, figuring I could probably kick the shit out if Nick if I had to. He was being rather passive right now. In fact, I hadn't even heard a negative comment out of him yet.

The little asshole was probably just scared.

We ended up sprawled on the giant C-shaped couch in front of the main TV (it left plenty of space between me and Nick). I wrapped myself around a warm plate of cookies on one side of the C and Iggy sat on the floor below me, resting his fluffy hair on my legs. I tugged on it to annoy him every time I reached for a cookie, which was often. Lissa sat in the middle of the couch, a sort of barrier to divide me from Nick, who sat on the other half of the C.

"Why are we watching Attack On Titan for the fifth time this month?" Iggy asked as I handed him a cookie.

"Because. Giant, anatomically incorrect, naked human-eating monsters. That's why." I mean, Levi was also kind of hot, but that was beside the point.

"So… this has nothing to do with Levi?" Iggy smirked, pointing out the fact that I _happened_ to start on Episode 4, which was truthfully where I'd left off last time I watched SNK. Both of us knew this was the episode where Levi appeared.

"Um, no," I said truthfully.

"You know, if Levi's hair was longer and he had a tongue stud, a five-year emo phase, and didn't wear white pants, he'd look just like Nick," Iggy said.

"I don't have a tongue stud," Nick said at the same time that I protested, "No, Iggy, you're really stretching it. Levi looks nothing like Fang."

"That's because he never went through an emo phase," Iggy argued, reaching up and grabbing a cookie from the plate.

"Nick is a _slob,_ " I retort. "Levi is an OCD clean-freak. They'll never be alike."

"Guys, shut up," Lissa said loudly. "I can barely read the subs you're so loud."

"That's ridiculous," I snarl. Nick's been silent the whole time, even throughout our conversation comparing him to a character he's probably never seen.

"Hey, I think Maya's home!" yelled Iggy, standing up and nearly sending the cookie plate flying. I listened and heard keys turning in the door. _Yay!_ Maybe if she's here, Nick will leave.

I sprinted after Iggy, going to greet my sister. She came bearing gifts – four boxes of pizza, two bags of chewy cookies, and a six-pack of Coke. _More cookies!_ See, when she's not forcing me to dress like a little girl, my sister is a pretty great person. We drag her into the TV room.

"Lissa!" she exclaims.

"Maya!" Lissa jumps to hug her, and they start chatting.

"Oh… and… Nicholas! Hey!" She waves at him, smirking. He narrows his eyes but stays put, eyes on the pizza.

 _Shit. He's not going anywhere._

 **Ugh, shit chapter. A filler, I guess.**

 **Not even proofread. Ew.**

 **I'll try to get another chapter up before the end of the month, but no promises – I have this giant fucking book report thing to do.**

 **(I am** ** _literally_** **running on empty in life right now with nothing but caffeine and Gerard Way's screaming to fuel me.)**

 **Anyone else like SNK/AOT/ whatever the hell you'd like to call it?**


	9. Chapter 9

"I've invited over Ella," Maya squealed, settling onto Nick's side of the couch. I had a box of Extra-Super-Supreme on my lap, and the rest of them were dispersed among the couch. "She'll be here as soon as her shift ends."

"I haven't seen her in so long," Iggy said, reaching up to take a piece of my pizza. I smacked his hand away and glanced at Nick – good, he was starting to look uncomfortable. His sour little face was twisted into an angry frown. Iggy spoke around a slice: "Are you going to have some kinky lesbian threesome once she gets here?"

Maya and Lissa exchanged All-Knowing-Lesbian-Glances and burst into laughter.

"Hahaha, no," Maya said, spraying soda out of her nose as she laughed.

"Hmmm… seems like a 'yes' sort of no to me," said Iggy, this time attempting to steal my Coke can. I let him drink off of it, figuring that he probably didn't have any STDs or whatever because he was most likely the only virgin in this house besides me.

I snatched it back from him and drank as much as I could before he grabbed it again.

"Oooh, oooh, OOOOH! Indirect kiss!" shouted Maya, standing up from her place on the couch and pointing at us.

Lissa grinned wickedly. "See, I told you, Maxie _is_ getting some, just look at these two!" At this, I nearly punched her, but realized that punching her wouldn't get me anywhere.

"Iggy and I are _not_ fucking," I growl. Maya sits down and crosses her arms smugly.

"Don't listen to her, we have sex daily," Iggy said, winking at Lissa. "It's the kinkiest sex you could imagine. Did you know Max has a foot fetish?"

"I DO NOT HAVE A FOOT FETISH, AND WE ARE NOT HAVING SEX DAILY," I scream just as Ella steps into the room, laughing her ass off.

"Oh, really?" She raises an eyebrow. "You and… Iggy? I could see it, yeah."

Maya jumps up and goes to kiss her. I take advantage of the distraction to kick Iggy's head, but he's busy watching them make out.

"That's _hot_ ," he says in a carrying whisper, but I kick him again to make him go quiet. The only sound in the room is Japanese people coming from the TV, and the disgusting make-out sounds coming from Maya and Ella. Lissa looks slightly left out and I turn up the volume for her sake. She turns to the TV and starts making commentary.

"Just like that. Just like that, Eren. Put the fucking scarf right over her entire fucking face. Way to go. It's like you're calling her ugly and you don't want to see her face. That's great. You are _never_ going to have any sex, with Levi or without Levi, _ever_."

I turn my attention back to the TV and try to ignore the gropefest happening slightly to my left. Unfortunately, the Pile of Shit, aka Nick, has decided to start staring at me with a smirk on his face. It's hard to concentrate on the TV with his shitty little smile directed at me, and I start to feel a headache coming on, probably both from his stupid face and from the TV.

"Be right back," I mutter, but nobody's listening, and Iggy's already loading the next episode so there's no point in trying to talk to him. So I just head to the bathroom and pop a Tylenol, then two for good measure. I hop onto the counter and lean the back of my head against the mirror, feeling its cool surface on my aching head. It numbs the pain until that part of the mirror warms up and I scoot a foot to the side for a new patch of cool.

God, I wish that I'd never have to see Nick again in my life.

 _Slut. Whore. Bitch. Ugly-ass trash._ His comments began to echo in my head and I started to believe them. The longer I heard them, the more I realized that he was probably just speaking the truth: I had no business coming here to this school after my dad killed himself at work; I was just like him, somebody who didn't fit in, somebody who had friends but those friends probably laughed behind her back – I remembered how Dad always pinned those articles that ridiculed him to the fridge, so every time he went to crack open a beer he could see how much of a failure he was.

Even my mom was never home. When she was, she was always trying to buy me new, pretty clothes and make me look good with makeup. She probably hated me; thought I was an ugly, horrible person; wished I was off at college so she could live alone. My sister didn't need me; we barely talked and when we did, it was some sort of bet between me and her, and I always lost.

I hunched over on the counter and tried to get rid of those thoughts. _Of course they aren't true, my family loves me, I have friends… just look at Iggy…_

 ** _Max, he was trying to degrade you earlier. He was practically calling you a slut with a foot fetish._**

 _But… but… what about Nudge? Lissa? They're good friends._

 ** _They're always trying to dress you up. Do they really think you're pretty? Or are they making you look nice just so that they aren't followed by someone ugly?_**

 ** _What about Nick? He's spoken the truth, hasn't he? Why don't you listen?_**

 _He – he – I've spoken up for myself before._

 ** _Those were empty lies you told yourself. You can't stand up for yourself._**

 ** _Face it, Max. You're useless._**

 ** _Ugly-ass trash._**

The words burned in my head. No matter how much I argued, this new, pessimistic Voice had a better counter-argument. I clenched my fists. Pinched myself. Scraped my nails along my arms. It wouldn't go away. I could feel my breaths coming out at rapid speed. In a crescendo of anger and frustration, I leaned back and banged my head into the mirror as hard as I could. I felt it give way behind me and turned my now aching head to see the glass cracking in a circular pattern just before it all fell to the counter and all over the tiled floor. I scraped it off the counter with bleeding hands and drew my knees up to my chest, feeling something wet on my cheeks but unable to tell if it was blood or tears.

-yep there's a line here-

 **Nick's POV**

"Is there a bathroom in this place?" I asked, relaxing now that Max was out of the equation. Iggy was still sending occasional glares at me, but other than that, the room was pretty quiet.

"First door on the right upstairs," Maya said. Her expression towards me was now frosty instead of joking; she probably knew about the animosity between Max and I. Lissa, apparently, had not; and she'd wanted to bring me to Max's house without even asking me.

I'm going to justify myself now: Max made the first rude comment, and it just pushed off from there. She'd beat me up every time I tried to make a comment about her appearance or personality, and I'd just end up making fun of her again – and repeat.

Of course, the angry Voice inside of my head didn't help.

I sighed and tried to forget about last night, which had been plaguing me without rest, and instead tasked myself with finding the bathroom. _First door on the right?_ There were two doors in precisely the same place to the right of the stairs. I nudged my way through the right one and found not a bathroom, but _somebody's_ enormous-fucking room. There was a queen-size bed in the corner, which had drawn-back black curtains and a giant comforter with some weird-looking guy's face on it. There were at least thirty posters tacked on the walls, all either featuring group shots of bands, tour posters, seemingly random people's faces, or anime. Intrigued, I invited myself in, and studied the floor-to-ceiling, golden-edged mirror opposite of the bed. It was probably the largest mirror I'd ever seen, and there were all sorts of picture taped on the trim around it. There were pictures of Iggy, Lissa, Maya, a woman who was probably Mrs. Martinez, and some few kids I'd seen around school. Almost all of the pictures contained Max, so it was probably Max's room that I'd intruded in.

Probably half of the pictures, though, featured not only a several-years-younger Max, but a tall, hunched-over man with blond hair and a small beard. Max looked a lot like him – her hair in these photos was lighter than it was now, more like his. Their eyes were the same swirly, light-brown chocolatey color. I wondered if he was her dad.

I realized then that I was seriously just snooping through my _mortal enemy's room_ and I quickly backed out of it, turning and going to the other door. I tried to open it, but it was locked. I knocked on it, but there was no response.

I guess I'd have to find some other bathroom.

 **Even max has inner demons that show up sometimes, even though she's a relatively happy and badass person.**

 **Yeah, I realise that I kept switching between first/second pov so I'll try to fix that when I don't feel so lazy.**

 **Also im happy right now because I posted something on tumblr last night and woke up to find that it had like 100 notes and it was great because my stuff usually has like 0-2 notes on it**

 **Additionally I was reading through my old Stars Collide and I came across this AN**

 ** _"_** ** _Summary of le day: make friends by screaming KILL IT at a flower (long story), talk about Satan with a dude im not sure is totally sane, New friends steal my seaweed."_**

 **HOLY SHIT. This is just making me really sad right now. This AN is almost a whole year old.**

· **The friend who recruited me when I screamed at her to kill the flowers and she was all like "YEH! Lets be frens!"** ** _she now hates me and has threatened to murder me more than once for no reason_**

· **I haven't talked to the dude who I was chatting about satan with for about 3 months because I think he's REALLY FUCKING HOT and I like him A LOT but I don't think he even considers me a friend anymore because we just stopped talking for some reason and every time I hear his favorite song I just start crying and I think hes gay anyways so If I managed to get him to be frens again hed probably never be with me**

· **I don't actually talk to any of these people anymore because they're all friends with the girl who threatened to kill me but I don't want to be around them when shes there so I haven't talked to most of them for like 6 months**

· **I don't have any friends**

· **I cant share my seaweed anymore**

· **I just made myself 100% depressed by reading one sentence that I wrote two weeks into my first time at public school ever**

· **Im crying right now because the song "summertime" by mcr is making me cry because it's the song that me and The Guy I Like agreed was the best song ever and everything is just so fucked up right now**

· **Have you ever just felt like you are at 100% rock bottom and you wish you could just go back in time 11 months and redo everything**

· **I would**

· **((((are you still reading this?))))**

 **sorry**


End file.
